In the past, there has been a continuing need for some sort of a protective device to prohibit bees and the like from entering into an upper open end of a beverage container so as to prevent a bee from entering into the mouth of an unsuspecting person who may be drinking from the container. In the past, serious injuries have occurred where bees have gotten into the open end of a beverage can and where the drinker has been stung on his or her facial tissues or tongue resulting in serious injury and death on occasion.
To this end, the state of the art has developed to the point where at least one U.S. patent has issued which concerns itself with the overall problem and attention is directed to U.S. Pat. No. 4,537,326 issued to Clyde D. Morehead on Aug. 27, 1985 and which is entitled: "Protector for Drink Opening". This patent specifically concerns itself with a small sized protector identified at 20 in the patent that is mounted by the can manufacturer upon the can and secured to the can by a rivet. A number of different embodiments are shown in this patent and all of them possess essentially this same riveted feature insofar as the element 20 is concerned. The element 20 constitutes a small protector which is only slightly larger than the can opening and is adapted to overly only the opening.
Other devices are also disclosed in the prior art but none of them are specifically concerned with providing protection against bees entering an opening in a can. Other issued U.S. patents known by the inventor are listed below, as follows:
______________________________________ INVENTOR'S NAME TITLE OF PATENT U.S. Pat. No. ______________________________________ Joseph Leach Improvement in Covers 110,148 for and Coffee Cups L. A. Robbins Combined Bottle Cap 1,198,959 and Strainer P. Davis Vent Opening 3,387,765 Allen Zoellick Covers for Drinking 4,081,103 Containers Bush et al. Child Resistant 4,284,200 Dispensing Closure Joseph McFarland Cap for Hot Beverage 4,619,372 Cup Hickman Two-Flap Closure 4,693,399 ______________________________________
The protective one piece circular synthetic plastic beverage can top cover that is the subject of my invention is a removable cover that can be re-used. The cover is essentially adapted to be secured to the rim of a beverage can in overlying protective assembly with respect to the open end of the beverage can and the cover has a depressed meshed area adapted to be closely positioned relative to a key hole opening in the can for beverage to flow through the meshed area in a carefully controlled manner to minimize spillage of the beverage.
The cover of my invention can be sold in the after market rather than be manufactured as an integral part of the can by a can manufacturer. Thus, the user would have the advantageous option as to whether he may wish to use the protective cover or not use it. This option given to the user enables the user to use the cover when the bees and the like are more of a problem and to avoid using the cover in other seasons of the year. It is a further important element of my invention to provide a protective cover that can be optionally used and attached with a beverage can by the user rather than to have a can manufacturer provide a protector on all cans being manufactured whether or not the bees are a problem to the ultimate consumer that purchases this beverage can. Thus the costs of providing the cover to a can manufacturer can be reduced by only selectively using my ew cover for the can rather than having a small shield or cover permanently attached to the can.
The protective cover that is here disclosed has other important features which will be further described hereafter.